Soaring Over Stress, Episode Four ~ The Angst of Anxiety

In this podcast episode, the host discusses anxiety and its origins. The host emphasizes the importance of seeking professional help for mental health issues. The history of anxiety is explored, with references to ancient philosophers and their teachings on achieving peace of mind. The concept of mindfulness is discussed, but the host expresses skepticism about its effectiveness. The analogy of flowers and their ability to simply be is used to illustrate the idea of self-worth. The host also shares personal experiences with therapy and the journey to self-acceptance. The importance of letting go of control and allowing life to flow is emphasized. Hello, hello and welcome back to Soaring Over Stress, an SOS for navigating stress and anxiety in the workplace and beyond. I'm your host, Amy Rae, and today we'll be talking about the angst of anxiety, where it originates, how it shows up in your day to day, so hopefully it can show up less and less. I wanted to add a quick disclaimer today before we get into this morning's episode. I'm not a medical professional. If you need further assistance with your mental health, I would encourage you to please reach out to a certified psychiatrist, therapist, or your family physician. My degree is in social work, but I'm not currently practicing in a therapeutic capacity. I am instead dedicated to public speaking and to this podcast so that I can reach as many people as possible to help my listeners know that there is help, that other people do get it, and that you're not alone. I'm in the field, but not in the field, if you will. Maybe I'm akin to a beautiful vase of wildflowers. I've been cut down, put on display so you can see what it's like to still be something to behold after the trauma, depression, and anxiety have cut you down. Cut flowers only stay alive for so long, but even if you press the life out of me, my beauty remains. Now, let's get to it. I recently came across an article titled, A History of Anxiety from Hippocrates to DSM by CROCQ, and his article states the following, and before I read his article, I'm just going to say some of this is really heady, so hang in there with me, okay? And his article goes like this, it has often been written that the history of anxiety disorders is recent. It has been repeated that anxiety was hardly known as an illness before the 19th century. In contrast, mood disorders can boast historical roots going back to classical antiquity. However, it may not be true that anxiety is a relatively new construct. There are indications that anxiety was clearly identified as a distinct negative effect, and as a separate disorder by Greco-Roman philosophers and physicians. In addition, ancient philosophy suggests treatments for anxiety that are not too far removed from today's cognitive approaches. Seneca, a Stoic philosopher and a kid I knew in grade school, taught his contemporaries how to achieve freedom from anxiety in his book of Peace of Mind. Seneca defies the ideal state of peace of mind as a situation where one is undisturbed. One way to escape from the clutches of anxiety is to devote one's attention to the present instead of worrying about the future. In his other book, On the Shortness of Life, Seneca recommends combining together past, present, and future in only one time. He states, he makes his life long by combining all time into one. Today, this focus on the present moment is one of the key objectives and techniques in such things as mindfulness. Then there were the Epicureans. Epicureans taught that the objective of a happy life included reaching a state of atraxia. Epicureans taught the objective of a happy life included reaching a state called ataraxia, where the mind was free of worry. The article goes on to say that the aim to get rid of anxiety is to not focus on the past or the present, but rather only focus on the here and now. Tell that to anyone with PTSD. I'm not the biggest fan of mindfulness. I realize it has its place, but I also have come to learn that we can't get better if we don't deal with the past. We'll save that for a future episode. Ataraxia is having a state of calmness, to be untroubled by mental or emotional disquiet. It is the highest goal to achieve tranquility of mind. It makes me think of the reference of being a bouquet of wildflowers. Flowers are unbothered by the world around them. They just simply are, much like our analogy of the egg last week and the concept of holding space. We are to simply be, no correction, no fixing, no advice. In the book of Matthew in the Bible, it speaks to flowers and anxiety as such. Why are you anxious? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, and yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was never arrayed like one of these. So if God closed the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more so will he close you? Lilies do not work, they do not worry, and they're never anxious. They just simply are. I remember early work with my current therapist, Robin. I struggled for so long with feelings, but I was somehow fundamentally unlovable. Deep inside of me, there was this hidden cultivation where I believed I was not enough. In the soil, in the roots, in the mycelium of my makeup was the unspoken network of communication that was developed before I could even speak. It was as if the farmers who were tasked with planting and harvesting my heart, mind, and soul began tilling the ground with a spade of deception, greed, and neglect. It seems the farmers sought to both poison and disrupt the soil while simultaneously hoping to gain a harvest they could use and exploit, and that they did. So the plant called Amy believed at her core that she was vile for the very poison the farmers sprinkled over her life before she ever had a vote. I remember telling my therapist in great anguish time and time again how I wished I was enough, how I longed to be loved, how I hoped I could figure out how to be a better plant in order to be loved correctly. And Robin, my therapist, in her steadfastly loving and patient voice would repeatedly remind me, Amy, dear, sweet, precious Amy, you do not have to earn love. You do not have to be A-B-C in order to be worthy of it. You simply are. Your heart does not beg to beat any more than your lungs plea for air. They just take it, and they simply are. They function without our doing, without our working, without our conscious minds asking for it. And in the same way, our very existence puts the stamp of being worthy of love all over our lives. I recently began thumbing through a book about anxiety by Sarah Wilson titled First We Make the Beast Beautiful, A New Journey Through Anxiety. As I was reading the titles for the different chapters, one jumped out at me. It's titled Back the Fuck Off. And I think this would be a good portion to add to our podcast today. She writes, Back in year eight English, Mrs. Cochran set our class a metaphor assignment. We'd covered analogies the week before. As ever, I took the task incredibly seriously. There's a river that flows, I wrote somewhat loftily. This is life's inevitable logic, the logic that ensures eyebrow hairs sprout exactly where they need them to protect our eyes from dust, and ensures that springtime rolls round just as winter becomes unbearable, and that seas' specks of moisture coalesce to form rainbows. I use these very examples in my assignment, but I'm saving you the tortured prose by paraphrasing things heavily. Some of us try to dam the river with piles of logs and other obstacles because we think the river should flow differently, but micromanaging partners, or blocking our pain, or by forcing a dinner that no one wants, they repeatedly cancel, but we ignore the signs and keep rescheduling. When we do this, the pressure builds and builds. The water, the flow of life, banks up behind the obstruction, determined to continue its flow because, you know what? It kind of knows where it's going. It's ingrained in the groove of the valley, the gapes in the boulders, the gaps in the boulders, and it's bigger than us, way bigger, and way more knowing. Eventually the flow wins, and boof, our micromanaged piles of logs explode from the force of the flow. Our stuff goes flying in all directions. It's devastating, and then the river goes back to flowing as it was always going to before we came along and got in the way. I round off my metaphor assignment cringefully by advising the reader, poor Mrs. Cochran, to perhaps try using the logs to build a comfortable little raft and to sit atop and let the river carry them languidly down the river. I got a B for my project. Twenty-five years later, Mrs. Cochran connected with me over Facebook, and we met in New York's Soho where she now works. I took my below-par grade up with her. I'd been really happy with my torturous metaphorical tale, and I wanted to take up with her back then, but our school was not the kind that was encouraging such provocative and empowering behavior. Mrs. Cochran and I spent the rest of the night talking about the flow and the synchronicity of life, the very flow that brought us together that night, the very flow that my perfectionistic thirteen-year-old self had wanted to interrupt by disputing her grade. The next day, I was reading the book The Blood of Others. Flowingly on page 108, I found this line, I wanted all human life to be pure, transparent freedom, and I found myself existing in other people's lives as a solid obstacle. Yes, more than anything, we want to exist in pure, flowy freedom. We don't actually want to build dams. We need to get out of the way. We need to let go. We need to take our filthy myths off of life for ourselves and for others. Besides, we don't want to feel we have to do it all on our own. I want to know that life has this one, that I am held and can chill on the top deck for a bit with a drink with an umbrella in it. We cannot be so anxious to control things, to change the narrative, that we dam up what should be freely flowing. We can't fixate on things we have no ability to change, i.e. the past and the future. We mustn't beg to be enough because we already are. We are fully functioning, just as the heart beats without asking to be liked and the lungs inhale and exhale without feeling the need to ask permission ahead of time. Like a heart beats without our consent, like a lily grows and is adorned with beauty it never chose, like the waters that steer their own course, we need to back the fuck off and find atraxia, a state of calm to achieve tranquility of mind. I'm going to share with you one of my poems. It's the first I'm sharing on air, titled Water in Boxes. God and the world are not as rigid as we are taught in church. A world is round for a reason. There are no corners to get placed in, no closets to be locked. There is only life that circulates in divine fluidity. God does not live in the box constructed by patriarchy, nor does he stand with his hands on his hips waiting to deny the weak. There is room for all and cages for none, and God made rainbows and he loves them. Where did humanity ever get the idea that love had borders or colors had different sets of worth? Did you ever see Jesus deny a woman when she asked for acceptance and love? No, there was only ever grace. Gaze at the waters flowing freely from the streams. Behold the ocean's might and power. It's the flowing waters that bring us life. It's the movement without restriction that ushers us into the deep. And even waters have a way of escaping from boxes. Remember you can find out more about me, what I do, why I do it, on my website, EagleExercises.com, all lowercase. Also, you're free to check out my Facebook page with the same name, Eagle Exercises. I encourage you to seek atraxia. Go freely with the waters, let go of life, and let life happen. Go freely with the waters, let go, and let life happen. For you are a lily, beautiful to behold and worthy of love, without ever needing to prove it. Until next time, this is Amy Rae, reminding you, I see you, you matter, and your story counts.